The industry-standard and Pure Storage best practice for Fibre Channel (FC) zoning is Single Initiator to Multiple Target (SIMT). In this configuration, each zone contains exactly one initiator port (e.g., a server's HBA port) and all the necessary target ports from the FlashArray. This method isolates traffic and significantly reduces the scope of fabric-wide notifications, such as Registered State Change Notifications (RSCNs), which occur when a device's state changes. Limiting RSCN propagation enhances the stability and predictability of the entire storage area network (SAN) and improves security by preventing hosts from communicating with each other.

A. Multiple initiator to multiple target zoning is strongly discouraged as a single device issue can generate RSCNs that disrupt all other devices in the zone.

C. Single target to multiple initiator zoning is not as isolated as SIMT and still allows an issue with one initiator to affect all others in the zone.

1. Pure Storage, "FlashArray Host Connectivity Guide for Fibre Channel," Page 8, Section: "Zoning." The guide explicitly states, "Pure Storage recommends single-initiator-multiple-target zoning."

2. Brocade, "Brocade SAN Zoning Best Practices," Page 4. This industry guide reinforces the principle: "The best practice is to have only one initiator in each zone (single-initiator zoning)."

3. Cisco, "Cisco MDS 9000 Series Best Practices," Page 21, Section: "Zoning Best Practices." This document recommends creating zones with a single initiator and one or more targets.